The author Malcolm Smith has been the Editor of Jabberwock, the bi-annual journal of the Fleet Air Arm Museum, for a short while and has inherited the complete archive of editions dating back to the formation of SOFFAAM in 1979.

After the surrender of the French government in May 1940, the British were concerned that the resources of the French Empire, and particularly the powerful French fleet, would be put at the disposal of the Germans.

The Great Boer War (1899 - 1902) - more properly the Great Anglo-Boer War - was one of the last romantic wars, pitting a sturdy, stubborn pioneer people fighting to establish the independence of their tiny nation against the British Empire at its peak of power and self-confidence.